Hong Kong’s Tung family to offer HK$500,000 scholarships to 16 university students committed to serving country

The scholarships are being offered by the Tung & Ngai Education Foundation, which was set up in 2017 by Tung Chao-yu, the younger brother of shipping magnate Tung Chao-yung and the uncle of former chief executive Tung Chee-hwa, along with his late wife Lily Ngai Chua-Jai.

“They [the board of the foundation] hope to build and strengthen recipients’ sense of recognition of the country and confidence in their culture, as well as boost their civil awareness and responsibility,” Wong Suk-ying, the executive director of the foundation, told the media last week.

Wong is a professor at the department of sociology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

The foundation said the value of the scholarship was the highest among any for local undergraduate students with permanent residency in the city.

Asked whether the foundation would assess how patriotic the students were in their personal statements, Wong said the foundation certainly hoped the applicants had a sense of national identity.

“But we are not asking the students to write ‘I love China’ or ‘I love Hong Kong’ 10 times to show how patriotic they are,” she said.

She said all of Tung Chao-yu’s assets went into setting up the foundation, although she did not know the amount.

“What I could say is we do not need to worry [about the money]. We all know the Tung family does things with perseverance and will not give up,” she said.

The scholarship will be offered to first year students at the University of Hong Kong, Chinese University, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and Polytechnic University.

Apart from good academic results, candidates are also expected to have a high level of proficiency in Cantonese, Mandarin and English.

Wong said the recipients would be required to live in Hong Kong or on the mainland for a minimum of two years after graduation, but flexibility would be given if they wanted to pursue postgraduate studies overseas or they had other legitimate reasons for leaving.

She said Tung Chee-hwa attached great importance to the lives of young Hong Kong people and hoped the foundation could encourage them to contribute to society.